Steam injected or boiled? A debate rages about the proper way to cook a bagel. What's the Einstein Bros. method? Dunno. Don't care. What matters most to us is the taste and texture, and this chain scores on both points, offering a wide variety of flavors--from garlic to cranberries and pumpkin--and doughy pillows that are light and chewy without that dense, clay-like demeanor that afflicts lesser bagels. Plus, the bagels here are saucer-sized, so just one--with either a smear of cream cheese or dressed up with toppings such as smoked salmon--makes a full and filling lunch.

Lemonade. That's what Iris is. Here are the lemons: a space that has been home to dreadful or dreadfully performing restaurants over the last decade; a restaurant owner (Susie Priore) who fled to California to get a master's degree so that she could join the Peace Corps and teach English in Morocco; a Peace Corps mission that was soured by the prospect of a blond American woman in a Muslim country post-September 11; a Dallas restaurant mission spawned to pay off the loans used to acquire the master's degree to service the Peace Corps mission. What kind of person opens a restaurant to get out of debt? Someone who knows that the best restaurants are comfortable, engaging neighborhood haunts with food that intrigues but doesn't frighten. Chef Russell Hodges is a down-to-earth chap who comes up with dishes like a shrimp cocktail composed of two shrimp as thick as sumo wrestler thumbs surrounded by bread points, salmon carpaccio and a cleaved hard-boiled egg. Delicious foie gras, too. And rack of lamb. Don't forget the pan-seared sea bass with cannellini beans.

The browning of a chicken is an essential skill; just ask Julia Child. (Well, you could have asked her until a few months ago, anyway.) Mom told us the keys to a well-browned bird: Use quality olive oil, enhanced with butter; let the pieces warm to room temperature so they brown evenly; and dry the skin first with paper towels. Got that? Now we don't know exactly what Ali Baba Cafe does to concoct its "Golden Chicken"; we just know it's the most excellent chicken, a minor poultry miracle. The menu describes it as rotisserie chicken, but it's nothing like the squishy-textured stuff you get at fast-food joints. It's a half-chicken, and the skin, finished under the broiler, is perfectly crisp and spiked with garlic, lemon and spices; beneath it, the tender flesh is bursting with the flavor of...chicken. Yeah. Some chicken does have flavor. Try it with a side of fluffy rice pilaf or hummus; just get it when it's hot, because it isn't quite the same when it's steamed for a while in the takeout box.

We can't quite figure out the ownership status of ZuZu. It used to be a chain; now it isn't. Each of the restaurants bearing the name ZuZu in Dallas has a different owner--or so we were told--and some have different menus. Well, we can vouch for three places named ZuZu, one in Addison and two in Dallas, and all carry the original ZuZu menu of "handmade" Mexican food. And all are superb, much better than you'd expect for a counter-service joint. Try the grilled, marinated chicken or the "Poncho Dinner," which consists of a chicken enchilada, a beef taco and a chicken flauta. Everything appears to be made fresh, and you have a variety of salsas to accent your meal, including a bracing tomatillo version. Wash it all down with fresh-squeezed lemon-limeade.

As if we have the dough for dinner at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse ($75 per person, minimum) or other such expense-account establishments. Nope, that wouldn't be us. Still, we do appreciate something a cut above your local Outback, with the waitstaff's forced familiarity, those stupid commercials and the decent but not great steaks. That's why we keep going back to Culpepper Steakhouse, just 25 minutes from downtown on the other side of Lake Ray Hubbard. We admit we have a soft spot for hunting-lodge décor; must be our Northern roots. We like the stone walls, the dark wood trim, the taxidermy menagerie and the Holstein hides. And we love the steaks--mesquite-grilled to perfection, like it was 1990 again--and available in a delicious array of "tops" and "bottoms," sauces such as the caramelized shallot, herb and Dijon compound butter. Add to that the best mashed potatoes in the area; delicious, skinny, fresh-cut fries; and professional, non-snooty service, and this is a steak house where you get excellent quality and value.

We watched for months as that place slowly went up off Highway 67. When they put up the sign, when cars started appearing in the parking lot, we started the calling. Are you open yet? OK, but when will you open? At last, a Pappadeaux opened in Southern Dallas--specifically, in Duncanville. It instantly became the No. 1 dining destination for us South-siders. In fact, if you go there on a Sunday, when the church crowds arrive in a steady stream, four generations at an extended table, you'll glimpse a perfect cross section of Dallas County's upwardly mobile black middle class. The Baptists come in the first wave, then the holy rollers at 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., all decked out in fancy hats and colorful suits. It couldn't be a happier place: Though there's usually a wait, everyone leaves satisfied after filling up on Pappadeaux's exquisitely fresh, generously portioned seafood plates. We like living in Southern Dallas. Now, we finally have a reason to dine there, too.